Common vision, standards

After meeting rooms, ASEAN is pushing for exhibition venues to be certified next,

Following the adoption of standards for hotel meeting rooms at ATF last year, the ASEAN committees on MICE competency standards are making further progress on certification with the focus now turned to exhibition venues at ATF 2019.

The standard for exhibition venues is part of the ASEAN MICE Venue Standards (AMVS), whose committee is led by Thailand to focus on hotel meeting rooms, exhibition and convention venues, and public areas (special events venue).

Supawan Teerarat, senior vice president strategic business development & innovation, Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau (TCEB) told the Daily: “This year we would like the ministers to adopt and endorse the standards for exhibition venues so that we can start the (implementation) of the category in the region.

“We’ve had the meeting for the second draft of the exhibition venue standard last November and the 10 countries have come to an agreement (following adjustments to make them suitable for application in ASEAN),” she shared.

Once the draft receives ministerial endorsement, regional NTOs will be invited to Thailand to receive auditor’s training of the exhibition venues. The auditors would then return to their respective countries to begin the auditing and certifying process, with the first exhibition venues expected to be certified in 2020, added Supawan.

Having certified venues based on common standards will be useful in courting international event organisers to the region, Supawan stressed.

“The difficulty for ASEAN at the moment is (to meet the needs of) organisers from Europe and the US looking for venues with high standards... Safety and security is number one (concern), as well as accessibility and facilities within the venue, while physical, technical and services (also need to be addressed).”

As well, ASEAN NTOs are developing standards for MICE professionals, with the working group led by Indonesia.

Ani Insani, head of the delegations for the Indonesian NTO, said: “We have developed the competency standards for MICE and events professionals from front liners to managers, and the ASEAN Secretariat has published the full set of them.”

The plan is to add the MICE and events professionals category to the ASEAN Common Competency Standards for Tourism Professionals (ACCSTP), which currently houses hotels, restaurants as well as tours and travel standards.

Ani said: “To add the MICE professional standard to the ACCSTP, we need to have all member countries’ endorsements. The Indonesia Minister of Tourism has sent the letters to his counterparts in ASEAN member countries, with Myanmar, Singapore and Brunei signed so far.”

By Mimi Hudoyo